


Not Alone

by Kalla_Moonshado



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst, Gen, Harbingers - Khadgar, Khadgar cries his heart out, Khadgar takes too much on his shoulders, Medivh as a Shade, Sad Khadgar, Sorry Not Sorry, Written so it would GO AWAY, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 00:30:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10605534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalla_Moonshado/pseuds/Kalla_Moonshado
Summary: Khadgar goes to Karazhan for answers.  He finds answers, but not of the sort he's looking for.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Plotbunny that developed while listening to Within Temptation and realizing how close they come to touching on Azeroth’s denizens with so many of their songs.  
> Song in question: Our Farewell.  
> I do not own the song, or anything to do with it, nor do I own any of the characters presented here. I make no money off this work in any way. I wrote this because it wouldn’t GO AWAY.
> 
> Set sort of during Harbingers, or before it.
> 
> I know there's a lot of Khadgar angst out there, so I figured why not add to it? Especially since listening to music just shoves things in my head and they don't stop until I write them.  
> I'll probably hate this in the morning, since I wrote it all at once in the space of two hours.

Not Alone  
  
His footsteps were heavy as they echoed off the library walls.  How long ago had it been since he last laid eyes on these shelves?  Was it when…?

Something crunched under one boot, and Khadgar shifted his foot away to look down at it.  He shifted his grip on Atiesh and leaned the brightly lit head of the staff down as he leaned to pick it up.  It was the remains of a lock.  The gold of it shimmered in the slightly blue tint of the light as he ran his thumb over it.  He narrowed his eyes, sighed, and let it fall from his fingers.  He knew that lock.  It had been the first of many to submit to his delicate work.  
  
Raising Atiesh high as he stood up, he willed it brighter, bright enough to illuminate the entire area, at least as brightly as the frozen fire and blue crystal it had once been illuminated with.  His heart sank a little. Months of work, torn to shreds.  Volumes had been pitched to the floor when their cases had sagged under… what? The weight of years? Age? The winds of destruction the abandoned tower had succumbed to over years of neglect?  
  
Sighing, he dimmed the staff to where it had been, and continued moving – toward the back of the library.  He was stopped by a bookcase that had toppled completely. Toppled? No. It looked like the thing had simply collapsed in on itself, its contents strewn in the aisle as though they had burst from the front of it, and likely would have done the same in the back, had it not been against a wall.  The staircase to the upper floor lay beyond the wreckage.  He closed his eyes briefly, and lifted his foot to step onto the remnants, slowly pressing his weight down and hoping it would hold.  
  
It did.  The breath he did not realize he was holding rushed out of him in a sigh of relief as he crossed the ruined shelf and stepped down from it.  Something else crunched underfoot.  Once again, he lowered the staff and bent down to inspect it.  His fingers trembled as he lifted the little clockwork cricket from the dusty floor.  He smiled at it.

“Hello,” he murmured, as though greeting an old friend. “I wonder if you still work.”  
  
A few moments of searching found the pen, still fitted with the nib to wind it.  Carefully, he wound it, then held it in his palm.  Silence followed the tiny sounds of ticking as he wound it and pulled the pen away.

Shrugging, he pocketed the pen, and wondered if the rest of what he had lost of his kit was still here. Perhaps under the bookshelf he had crossed.  He was sure there was a table there, one he used to work frequently at in his youth.

Atiesh in one hand, the cricket in the other, he slowly mounted the stairs, mindful that they could collapse under his weight at any moment.  Once at the top he breathed another sigh of relief, and looked down at the cricket in his hand, and sighed.  He knew some of the tomes on this level were trapped – and the cricket lay silent.  He slipped it into his pocket with its winding pen.  Closing his eyes briefly, he raised the staff once more and then began running his eyes over the spines of the books.  He had never done much with these as they had not needed sorting when he had organized the library in the first place.  Perhaps here he would find the answers he came seeking.  
  
“I know you.”  
  
The voice was familiar, and Khadgar looked up from the book in his hands sharply.  
  
“The new assistant.”  The words were quieter now. “Forgive me…” The words trailed away into incoherent whispers.  
  
Khadgar looked over his shoulder. Nothing.  Karazhan did not offer visions any longer, but considering where it was, and the things that had happened here, it was possible it was haunted.  
  
_By more than just ghosts,_ Khadgar thought grimly.  He lowered his eyes to the pages of the book again.  
  
“Forgive me, Young Trust.”  This time the words were stronger than the first, and seemed to be directly behind the Archmage.  He jumped and the book tumbled from his grasp.  He spun on his heels, his right hand scooping Atiesh out of the air as he turned, his feet settling into a defensive position, his blue eyes glowing slightly as he called the ambient magic around him.  
  
“You couldn’t hurt me that way, even if you tried, child.”  The voice solidified into a shade.  The man looked tired, worn, shoulders sagging slightly as though a great weight lay upon them.  
  
“Medivh?”  
  
“So you haven’t forgotten me.  That is … refreshing.”  The head lifted and the hood shifted just enough so Khadgar could see the magus’ eyes.  They were sad, but a smile played on the lips even as he took a step forward toward his once-apprentice.  
  
“You do not lower your defenses.  Good.  Question everything.  You remember.”  
  
Khadgar shifted his weight a little and lowered Atiesh in his hands, though did not move out of his stance.  “What are you?  Who are you?”  
  
“Ah, Young Trust, have you forgotten your name?”  The shade tilted its head, then sighed, and a breath of chilled air brushed Khadgar’s face.  “No. You have seen too much. And I… I was responsible for much of it.”  
  
Khadgar shifted his weight.  He was still in a defensive position, but it was less pronounced now.  “Master,” he began, but the shade held its hand up.  
  
“No. Do not call me that.  I… I was never your master.  Do you not remember our conversation the last time you left this place?”  
  
There was a clatter of wood and light danced as Atiesh dropped from Khadgar’s numb fingers.  He reached out to touch the shade, and found his hand sliding through.  Clearing his throat awkwardly, he bent to retrieve the staff, steadying the light.  He expected the shade to be gone when he rose, but Medivh was still there.  
  
“I do,” Khadgar answered.  “Are you a past spectre now? Future?”  
  
“Yes, and no.  Both, and neither.”  Medivh sighed. “I felt a call. I answered it.”  The shade shrugged.  “You came here, frantic for answers.  You were rather loud about it.  Moroes would be rather upset if you knocked the doors from their hinges when you came in.”  
  
Khadgar winced, remembering well the long-suffering looks on Moroes’ face when he had to clean up something Khadgar had done, and Khadgar himself had been unable to repair it.  
  
“But that is neither here nor there,” Medivh continued when Khadgar said nothing.  “I say again, you have seen too much.  Why did you call me?”  
  
“I am seeking answers.  The Burning Legion—“  
  
“Has nothing to do with your call to me, Young Trust.”  
  
Khadgar blinked.  Medivh smiled.  “You carry the weight of Azeroth – and Draenor both – on your slim shoulders.  You are not as young as you once were – and that is my fault.  You have repaired some of the damage I caused you, or rather the being masquerading as me had caused you, and you deny your years as a mage should.  Why do you carry this weight?”  
  
Khadgar blinked again.  “I must—“  
  
“Must you?”  
  
“I was your assistant—“  
  
“Apprentice, and no, you were apprentice to what I was meant to be, but never actually was.”  
  
“I was the Guardian’s Apprentice.  Who else could take such a burden?”  
  
Medivh was silent for a long moment.  The shade shook his head, slowly.  “I cannot answer that.  But it should never have been you alone.  In my moments, I hoped that the cycle, when it was broken, would allow you to lean on others.  To learn what the world really was, to know the magics of life.  No – I’m not speaking of the Arcane around us. Not fire. Not ice. Not water or bolts or lightning or air or wind or earth.  Life.  Have you _lived_ , Khadgar?”  
  
Light danced as Khadgar nearly dropped the staff again.  He could not remember the Guardian calling him by name once since his introduction.  Those first days were so long ago, but he had always been “Young Trust”, never “Khadgar”.  
  
“I am alive.  I have survived—“  
  
“Survived. No, that’s not what I’m asking you.  Have. You. Lived?  Who is your lover? Who are your friends? Who do you lean on for support? Where is your heart?”  Medivh watched as Khadgar blinked, opened his mouth, blushed, paled, closed his mouth, and blinked again.  The shade chuckled with the sound of crinkling parchment.  “There. You see?  Ah, my child, this is what I never wanted for you,” he said sadly.  “Archmage you may be, but you know only the work of a Guardian.”  
  
Khadgar started to protest, but Medivh held up a hand to stop him from answering. “You have never loved, you have had few friends, and you have seen more destruction than you should have.  What friends or loves you have had have been torn from you and you carry it in your heart like badges of war.  Where has my innocent Young Trust gone?  Is he still in there?  The young man who stayed by my side when I was unconscious, the one who watched over me, the one who, in the end, freed me?”  
  
Khadgar took a step back, dropping his eyes. “I—“  
  
“There he is,” the shade said softly.  “I loved you, Khadgar,” Medivh whispered.  “You were a joy in what life I had out of that monster’s grasp.”  
  
Khadgar could not answer.  The words bit through his heart like a lance of purest light, and it hurt.  It hurt, but they were words he wanted to hear so long ago.  He could not, would not ever admit that he had come to love his mentor, but he had.  In so many ways, he was father, brother and friend all in one… and then… and then…  
  
“I know,” the shade murmured.  “I knew.”  
  
The Archmage willed the tears to go away. Crying. At his age. He bit his lip.  
  
“Stop that.  Who’s going to see you here? Who’s going to hear you? Moroes? Cook?  They sleep now.  Perhaps it’s time you unburdened yourself?” Medivh reached out a hand, and his fingers brushed against Khadgar’s cheek.  “Child, oh, child, you mustn’t take it all and bottle it away.  Take a few moments for yourself.  Let Azeroth turn for a time without you to run to.  There is a chair to your left.”  
  
Khadgar shifted, automatically to the left.  He let go of Atiesh and it hovered as he sank into the chair.  He only vaguely heard the words that came after.  He could feel a warm hand stroking his hair, comfortingly as for the first time in decades, he wept.  
  
  
It was nearly dawn before Khadgar lifted his head, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands, pulling out a handkerchief and drying his eyes, blowing his nose, and turning to look up at the shade of Medivh.  
  
The shade was gone.  
  
“Master… I… I never even got to say goodbye.”  Tears pricked his eyes again, and he let them fall in silence.  “I’m alone in this fight.  I must find answers.” Answers.  That was why he was here.  He rose from the chair quickly, and reached for the book he had dropped.  
  
“You are not alone, Khadgar.  You only think you are.  Open your eyes.  Look around you.  See for yourself.  I will watch over you, and I will do better. This time, I will do better.”


End file.
